Background Noise
by sablize
Summary: Rose wants to tell them it's all in vain, but she can't bring herself to carve more lines into the smooth contours of Damon's young face. Some character introspection, oneshot.


**Title: **Background Noise (1/1)

**Author: **sablize

**Fandom:** The Vampire Diaries (TV series)

**Character/Pairing: **Damon/Rose

**Rating:** T

**Summary: **_Rose wants to tell them it's all in vain, but she can't bring herself to carve more lines into the smooth contours of Damon's young face._ Some character introspection, oneshot

**Spoilers:** 2.11 and 2.12 promos

**Disclaimer: **I own nothing!

**Author's Notes: **This is so random guys, I'm actually afraid to post it. Seriously. It's all over the place. Well, I suppose that's what happens when you write at midnight on an iTouch. Still, enjoy.

She's used to being a bit of a wallflower.

(Well, she would.)

She's been running for the past five hundred years, she's practically an expert at blending in. She's background noise, someone no one looks at twice. It shouldn't bother her how he looks at Elena sometimes— perfect, flawless Elena— like she is the sun and he is the Earth captured in her orbit.

(Tell you a secret, though: it does.)

He hides it well. But with over five hundred years in the bag, well, she reckons she knows a thing or two about reading people.

"Being in love with your brother's girlfriend must be difficult."

A subtle shake of the head, face screwed up in confusion with a bit of feigned hurt thrown in. "I'm not in love with anyone."

The lie tastes stale on her tongue.

Whether she likes it or not, Elena is just another Katerina, in the way she has both brothers wrapped around her finger. Both of them, so fierce. So determined to protect her. Rose wonders what they'll do when all the threats are gone.

(And sometimes she thinks they never will be.)

In those quiet daytime moments where she has the house to herself, her thoughts linger on Trevor more often than she'd care to admit. He would've marked Damon as her kind of man immediately. Well, like she'd said... she's more of a sucker for the bad boys.

(Bad boys with hearts of gold?)

She tries, and fails, to define her relationship with Damon. They're both so broken. Damaged goods. They're short on friends, short on judgment, short on time. Both are down someone who actually gives a damn. Well. They'll just have to make do with giving a damn about each other. One is better than none, after all.

(She wonders, if you put their half-hearts together, would it make a whole?)

Lying on his bed one morning, she studies the sunlight. _Really_ studies it: the dust motes dancing in split-second illumination, the shadows retreating behind books and lamps and forgotten clothes, the way the light turns the color of molten gold as it passes through an abandoned glass of whiskey, half-full. She can feel his eyes, cool like ice, watching her. Like he watches Elena? Hardly. Still, it's a stepping stone.

(She doesn't care to acknowledge it, but really, it's her who is the stepping stone.)

"I could make you a ring."

She shakes her head. "What's the point." It should've been a question, but her tone falls flat. He doesn't answer.

(She trembles, and fears the worst.)

She doesn't know exactly when she loses her head, but when she comes to herself, she's shaking like a leaf in Damon's arms. One look at Elena's face and Rose knows she's given her nightmares for the next week. Oh, she hates herself for it.

Of course, she could hate Damon. But how could she? She knew the risks, jumping out in front of an attacking werewolf, and she knew that she had to protect Damon. Elena needs him, far more than she needs Rose.

(Another thing she won't admit? She needs him too.)

The wallflower in her protests to the sudden attention she is receiving. Always, someone is watching after her, bringing her blood when her hoarse voice is loud enough to call for some, soothing her when she is screaming in pain or hot or cold or insane and it's strange, really, because no one has ever treated her like this before. Well, her mother maybe, long ago.

When the vampires are not on Rose-watching-duty, they are helping Bonnie and Elena search for a cure. Even Alaric (see, she knows all the names now) has gotten his hands on his wife's research.

(Rose wants to tell them it's all in vain, but she can't bring herself to carve more lines into the smooth contours of Damon's young face.)

He stays with her on her last day and watches the sunset.

Stefan has kindly let Rose borrow his ring, so her and Damon sit on the porch, glasses of whiskey in one hand, the other hand clasping each other's.

"Please don't leave," he says. The _me_ at the end is implied, she thinks.

"Death has a way of catching up to you after five hundred years." Does he hear the tears in her voice? She hears them in his.

The sun sinks lower and lower, and Damon pulls her in for one last kiss. She traces his lower lip with the tip of a finger, and whispers, "I'm so glad we had a chance."

She knows what he wants to say—_we don't have a chance, we never did, and this is our last and only one_— but she presses a finger to his lips to still it, and her eyes slide closed as the sun finally dips below the horizon.

(How poetic.)


End file.
